Field of the Invention
The invention is a liquid applicator having an integral brush and container arrangement. The applicator is particularly useful for applying coatings such as nail polish, adhesives, paper correcting fluid, touch-up lacquer, touch-up enamel and the like which contain volatile materials.
Conventional coating applicator arrangements and particularly nail polish applicators, generally comprise a container for the nail polish and a container sealing cover which carries an applicator brush. The applicator brush is generally in contact with the coating material or at least in contact with the volatile vapors of the coating material. Contact with the coating material or the vapors of the volatile material prevents the coating material from drying on the brush and making the brush hard and unusable.
In applying the coating from the container the sealing cover with the brush is removed from the container and the coating applied to the surface. It is difficult to carry the proper quantity of coating to the surface. In addition, the open top of the container permits the volatile material to evaporate from the pool of coating material and the coating material becomes hard and unusable.
Recently pen-like applicators have been developed which comprise a reservoir for the coating material and an applicator arranged to contact the coating material in the reservoir through a valve arrangement. In most cases, the applicator is not a brush and the apparatus requires a low viscosity coating composition. One difficulty with this type of device is arranging the applicator so that it is in contact with fresh coating material or in contact with the volatile material of the coating composition, to prevent drying of the coating on the applicator, when the applicator is not in use.
An applicator is disclosed in Application U.S. Ser. No. 07/243,130 filed now U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,152. The applicator does not hve means for varying the resistance to liquid flow and therefore, provides no control of liquid flow to the applicator brush. The present invention is an improvement in the applicator of U.S. Ser. No. 07/243,130 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,152.